An unofficial look at China & the Beijing Olympic Games

The Beijing Olympics Blog is always trying to keep relevant, fair and challenging. In an attempt to bring you more news and different views BOB will now feature guest posts from a range of contributers. This page is where you can find the guest posts as they come in.

The second instalment for our guest post page comes from Jordan Hirsch of Columbia University’s The Current. Jordan is Editor-in-Chief of The Current and Assistant Editor for Ideas & Innovations of PresenTense Magazine. You can email him at jch2134@columbia.edu. Check out Jordan’s thoughts on whether the Olympics can bring about change in China.

In the first guest post for the Beijing Olympics Blog a friend of Bob’s and a prominent Chinese Studies academic writes that this March tension was high and the atmosphere was poor in Beijing because of the prominent security presence.

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12 Responses

First let me set one thing straight…While I do not believe that the entire Chinese populous is out to GET the U.S.A. I do believe there are a significant number of them who would not have any qualms about claiming responsibility for toppling the nation which is the leader of the free world. However, many people fail to realize how these differing feelings arose between Eastern and Western civilization. For those of you who are knowledgeable in history I make the concession that we of Western civilization are partly to blame for the hard feelings. But I also realize that part of the price of maintaining your freedoms and liberties is having the courage and resilience to stand up for them. I believe that while many feel we must always respect differences between ourselves and others at some point a line has to be drawn and simple acceptance must end. In order to survive as a nation the people must be willing to fight and if necessary kill to defend their ideals. In today’s world many people proclaim understanding, peace, and acceptance will solve our problems; however, sometimes those you are trying to understand are simply taking advantage of your goodwill and ignorance. By allowing a nation such as China to host the Olympic games we are simply unofficially condoning their violations of what we believe is good and just. Sometimes it is necessary to speak out against attrocities even if you risk becoming unpopular on the world stage. It is our responsibility to speak out as a leader in the free world. We must not let China continue to unabashedly pollute the planet that we must all inhabit. We must not let China continue to supress the rights of other peoples. As a nation we must stand up for the ideals upon which our country was founded. We must be willing to defend our beliefs at home and abroad. We must demand that trade be fair and balanced between our nation and others, specifically China. Like it or not the U.S. was founded on Christian ideals and we must defend those beliefs. By the nature of Christianity and its doctrines we view life as sacred and are allowed to have our liberties, rights, and freedoms; something that is not seen in Eastern civilization. By not taking a stronger stance in our dealings with China we are setting up our own downfall.

(The idea of separation and church and state that everyone always proclaims and cites can not be found in the Dec. of Ind. or the Constitution. It can only be found in a letter written by one of the founding fathers to a minister at the time. I do not believe the United States should have strayed so far from the idea of “In God We Trust.” The U.S. was meant to be a Christian nation and we have skewed our view and allowed others to influence us in often negative ways.)

These Olympics would have definitely been boycotted by most of the free world, had it now been for China’s economic juggernaut.
There is a clear violation of human rights in China and no county has the werewithal to do anything or say anything about it.

Is this the American Olympics? I cannot believe the ridiculous coverage in the United States. Can we not see any other country compete or can they only televise every USA team? And the commentators are of the poorest quality. I am all for patriotism but the subjective commentary is unbelievable. So very bias and so very annoying to listen too. This is not the US olympics it is the world olympics. Please give credit to other countries when credit is due rather than saying how this country and that country didn’t deserve that score(gymnastics). Have these idiots not annoyed anyone else? I am sure that even if I was American I would be annoyed.

I don’t consider anybody that JUST runs fast as a true athlete…they are a dime a dozen. Being able to catch a football while maintaining that speed is worthy of respect. American football should be an olympic sport if you consider the european version (which is majorly over-rated) as an olympic sport. A TRUE athlete that can perform in a violent sport such as american football which combines all of the essential talents; most importantly; that just being fast is only one small factor. American football should be in the olympics if something as trivial as syncronized swimming is allowed to be considered as an olympic event. I don’t beleive a “soccer” player could ever compete at an American football level except as maybe a feild goal kicker.

Jamaica-Mens 4 x 100 world record, olympic record and gold metal is great and exciting to watch. Did anyone else see the exchange between the second and third racer (Handing off to Bolt). The second leg stepped on and over the line at least 2-3 times. I am wondering when this will be reviewed. i reviewed it in HD on a 65″ inch in slow motion step by step.
Its too bad as it is exciting to watch this record. You have to wonder if they are on GH as to the best of my knowledge, there is no test for it.

In addition to using underaged gymasts, I bet most of China’s Gold Metals were in competitions that were based on judges’ scores. If an event was a based on a time result (races) or score based on goals, homeruns….the Chinese did not fair well. Time to eliminate any event that is judge based!

Having been in Beijing for the games I have to say that they were a bit suffocated by the excess security.

I was also in Sydney for the Olympics in 2000 and walking around the streets in 2000 compared to 2008 it was completely different.

Maybe the language barrier had something to do with it although my wife who speaks Chinese felt the same, she is actually from Beijing and thought the atmosphere was better in Sydney.

Just before the games started I was standing at a training venue fence and noticed that the Australian hockey team were training. Beijing from Australia I thought it was cool to watch. I was about to take a photo when the security people moved me away. Even with the camera out of sight I was told to move on.

Was not impressed about that.

Also on the day of the 100m final my wife and I were not able to visit the Olympic green park. It was only for people with tickets from sponsors.

This was a big waste as a huge park had just a few people in it. They could have at least let in Olympic ticket holders.

Little things like that made it a lesser experience when compared with my Sydney experience.